There Was a 'Too Many Cooks' Musical
"The finale was everyone dancing in a line, and I come out with a machete..."
Four years after the release of Too Many Cooks, Inverse spoke with 10 key people who helped bring the surreal sitcom parody to life, from creator Casper Kelly to the puppeteer who made Smarf, to the extra who stole the show as a surprise villain. The result is this 6,000-word oral history about making weird art on the fly that you think no one will see — and having it “go viral” at around 20 million views.
Among the stories in this history assembled by Inverse: Too Many Cooks later became a musical. The creators finally confirm they just ripped off the logo from Full House. The actor who played the killer would keep a machete in his car for selfies. The song nearly turned into the theme from The Office.
Below’s a pull-out from our feature. This one’s about how Too Many Cooks later became a musical.
There Was a ‘Too Many Cooks’ Musical
It might not be a legitimate sequel, but it’s the closest we’ve come so far. In an effort to raise money for a new theater, members of the Atlanta-based improv group Dad’s Garage, who also acted in Too Many Cooks, put together a musical version with the help of William Tokarsky, the killer in the 15-minute video that aired during Adult Swim’s 4 a.m. time-slot on October 28, 2014.
Here’s Tokarsky describing the Too Many Cooks musical:
Most of the people that were on Too Many Cooks still stay in touch. I would say a good third were from an improv theater group called Dad’s Garage in Atlanta. I’ll go to Dad’s to do stuff for them, and we even did musical version [of Too Many Cooks].
They got permission to do a 10-minute skit, and they invited me to participate. It was a fundraiser to build their new house, which they successfully did. We did two performances there as a dress rehearsal and the final show at the Fox.
The premise was basically a musical tribute to Too Many Cooks. They did three montages. They had a blank wall standing in the middle and they had the mother and father, him getting off to go to work. They had a little song about how all she does it makes lunches. All the characters would parade through and pick up lunches and then change costumes. They had the coat rack and the coat himself and he put the coat on. That revealed me. Then they did a thing like The Lion King with Smarf singing and they sacrificed someone.
The finale was everyone dancing in a line, and I come out with a machete, and kill them one by one. Then I take off the mother’s head and do a Rocky Balboa pose while the father is singing. Then I slay him, put my foot on his chest, throw the machete down, take the microphone and go into song. But everything goes jumbled like in the video, and that’s how it ended.”
